LEICESTER TIGERS 2023/24 - KANGAROO MCKELLER: Do you come from a land down under? (Squad thread pt 2)

[ay2oh]

We won't be sacking McKellar. You also don't let McKellar sign players for next season, then sack him at the end of this season, that is beyond absurd.

For all the noise about McKellar, from the Quins game at home onwards, we have played 10 games in the league and have won 7. A 70% win percentage historically gets you into the top 4 and in some years is good enough for top 2.

As Raging Bull has stated previously, we were second most affected team by the World Cup, and that wasn't including JvP being injured by England. Include that, and we were the joint most affected team from the World Cup.

This is why context is key, as is patience.

Agree with this. Apparently Bath are having a fantastic season with a win- loss record 8-6 the same as ours and 4 of our losses was when we were missing 10 players due to the World Cup .

[sam16111986]

Where ever we finish this season I would be amazed if McKellar was sacked before being given time to show what he can do. Success is not an overnight thing, where there is overnight success is usually when the previous incumbent was actually better than thought and impatient Directors lacked the patience to see good work come to fruition. Deano's team had aged and needed a rebuild he was not given time. McKellar has taken over a squad with a blend of youth and age but not necessarily with all the skills he requires for his brand of rugby. Next season there will be a full.pre season with the majority of the players. There may or may not be additions to the coaching staff and of course possible new signings. We may not win a trophy this year or next but we will want to see clear signs of progress, for me success is finishing top two and a couple more young players establishing themselves in the team.

Loffreda was sacked after two finals, and after a world cup year.

I don't think I see much difference between the two situations, except Loffreda arguably did better.

I don't want McKellar sacked, I think the issues around Dickens has caused issues within both the squad and the game plans, but I'm not sure I'd be surprised if he was sacked. Let us not forget, albeit there were extenuating circumstances, O'Connor was sacked after one game.

I wouldn't blame Andrea for wanting to bring someone else in, assuming they've got a plan in place, but if we're going to replace McKellar it has to be immediately at the end of the season with the new coaching set up in place almost immediately.

Fairly sure Loffreda wasn’t sacked but returned home of his volition due to family issues. Happy to be corrected

That may have been the official line but Ben Kay has been on record as saying that senior players went to the board and expressed their displeasure. Loffreda had a top tier squad and a good coaching staff but struggled with the man management which might have been a language barrier issue I don't know but he wasn't popular according to reports.

[TTRITH]

Fairly sure Loffreda wasn’t sacked but returned home of his volition due to family issues. Happy to be corrected

That was Meyer, which is what saw Cockers take over initially.

Loffreda arrived at Welford Road three months into the season after he led Argentina to the World Cup semi-finals in 2007.
Things did not quite go to plan for him during the campaign as Leicester failed to defend their title.
The Tigers were also surprisingly dumped out of the Heineken Cup group stages before losing to the Ospreys in the final of the EDF Energy Cup.
They won 13 of their 22 games which earned them a fourth-place finish in the Premiership but came up short in another final after they suffered a 26-16 defeat at the hands of Wasps in the play-offs.
Loffreda was sacked less than eight months into his role, after losing nine league games and a failure to win any trophies.
After he was sacked by the club, Loffreda said: “I was disappointed, because I didn’t have enough time to learn and adjust. Leicester have very high expectations and are always in a rush to win trophies.”

[RagingBull]

All discussions tigers will always eventually end up about Loffreda

[sk 88]

Where ever we finish this season I would be amazed if McKellar was sacked before being given time to show what he can do. Success is not an overnight thing, where there is overnight success is usually when the previous incumbent was actually better than thought and impatient Directors lacked the patience to see good work come to fruition. Deano's team had aged and needed a rebuild he was not given time. McKellar has taken over a squad with a blend of youth and age but not necessarily with all the skills he requires for his brand of rugby. Next season there will be a full.pre season with the majority of the players. There may or may not be additions to the coaching staff and of course possible new signings. We may not win a trophy this year or next but we will want to see clear signs of progress, for me success is finishing top two and a couple more young players establishing themselves in the team.

Loffreda was sacked after two finals, and after a world cup year.

I don't think I see much difference between the two situations, except Loffreda arguably did better.

I don't want McKellar sacked, I think the issues around Dickens has caused issues within both the squad and the game plans, but I'm not sure I'd be surprised if he was sacked. Let us not forget, albeit there were extenuating circumstances, O'Connor was sacked after one game.

I wouldn't blame Andrea for wanting to bring someone else in, assuming they've got a plan in place, but if we're going to replace McKellar it has to be immediately at the end of the season with the new coaching set up in place almost immediately.

Fairly sure Loffreda wasn’t sacked but returned home of his volition due to family issues. Happy to be corrected

Loffreda was 100% sacked, he talks about it in a new(ish, read it about a year ago) book on the history of the Pumas where he reflects on his mistakes & where he should have been stronger (mainly on getting another sounding board in the coaching staff) or do things differently.

Meyer left shortly after because of a run of illness in his family, his tenure hadn't started great so was one of the genuine "mutual decisions" every sport teams claims, you're probably merging them as they were at most 8 months apart as decisions.

[sk 88]

SB basically had his first season as a free shot, so I think the same should be afforded to DMK. Agree with other comments, we were massively affected being a WC year and have probably done okay overall.

That being said, the two results against Gloucester did make me massively question the direction things were going. The attack coach situation has been farcical and hasn’t helped. Whilst happy to give DMK the benefit of the doubt, he and the club have to accept that most won’t be as forgiving next season and really don’t want the same excuses again.

Can we please put this nonsense to bed? In his first season Borthwick took us from 11th in the table to 6th and showed clear signs of improvement. People seem to be merging a few games at the fag end of the 2019/20 season when Geordan Murphy was still here and the main man into being a whole season. At most, if we are to say that was one whole season purely on Borthwick, Borthwick selected 4 games early season to really mix up selection, then moved decisively forward from November.

[sk 88]

We won't be sacking McKellar. You also don't let McKellar sign players for next season, then sack him at the end of this season, that is beyond absurd.

For all the noise about McKellar, from the Quins game at home onwards, we have played 10 games in the league and have won 7. A 70% win percentage historically gets you into the top 4 and in some years is good enough for top 2.

As Raging Bull has stated previously, we were second most affected team by the World Cup, and that wasn't including JvP being injured by England. Include that, and we were the joint most affected team from the World Cup.

This is why context is key, as is patience.

Agree with this. Apparently Bath are having a fantastic season with a win- loss record 8-6 the same as ours and 4 of our losses was when we were missing 10 players due to the World Cup .

But if we're playing the context game then surely it's fair to point out some of Bath's losses have come: 2 in the RWC period, one of which was with a rotated team in that period, a heavily side away to Sale then a heavily rotated side against us at Welford Road.

[Rugbygramps]

Apologies I got my Loffreda and Meyer mixed up.
As a matter of interest has anyone seen mention of Mckellar job being in jeopardy other than by a couple of people on this forum

[RagingBull]

SB basically had his first season as a free shot, so I think the same should be afforded to DMK. Agree with other comments, we were massively affected being a WC year and have probably done okay overall.

That being said, the two results against Gloucester did make me massively question the direction things were going. The attack coach situation has been farcical and hasn’t helped. Whilst happy to give DMK the benefit of the doubt, he and the club have to accept that most won’t be as forgiving next season and really don’t want the same excuses again.

Can we please put this nonsense to bed? In his first season Borthwick took us from 11th in the table to 6th and showed clear signs of improvement. People seem to be merging a few games at the fag end of the 2019/20 season when Geordan Murphy was still here and the main man into being a whole season. At most, if we are to say that was one whole season purely on Borthwick, Borthwick selected 4 games early season to really mix up selection, then moved decisively forward from November.

I'm sorry SK 88 I respect your opinion but since when is 10 games a few games at the end of the season?
And Borthwick had full control of the team during that time.

Those 10 games allow him to decide which players he wanted to keep and completely gutted the squad because of it.
Anyone who doesn't think those 10 games where massively important to Borthwick is kidding themselves

Also a little telling stat in his first season our record v the top 4 teams was 7 losses and 1 win. Don't get me wrong we improved a lot but we also looked miles off the top on the whole.
I feel that Bristol Bears home game was the cataylst for us (and looking at Bristol since for them as well but in the opposite way)

The league as a whole is so much different now compared to then we had 12 and the squads of everyone looked a lot more stretched thin, a lot of clubs benefited from those 3 clubs collapsing.

[TTRITH]

All discussions tigers will always eventually end up about Loffreda

It is a fair comparison, no? I appreciate it was 16 years ago at this point, but a coach coming in, affected by World Cup year.

Purely based on league results -

1999/00 - Dean Richards - Finished 1st - Champions
2003/04 - Dean Richards (Sacked)/John Wells - Finished 5th
2007/08 - Marcelo Loffreda - Finished 4th - Runners up
2011/12 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 2nd - Runners up
2015/16 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 4th - Losing Semi-finalist.
2019/20 - Geordan Murphy - Finished 11th
2023-24 - Dan McKeller - Potential finish 1st - 9th*

Deano, Loffreda and Murphy left their positions either during or after World Cup affected seasons.

Another key point I suppose in McKellars favour is he's 1 year into a 3 year contract. Is he doing that badly to warrant us paying him out of it? I'm not sure he is.

[TigerFeetSteve]

That being said, the two results against Gloucester did make me massively question the direction things were going. The attack coach situation has been farcical and hasn’t helped. Whilst happy to give DMK the benefit of the doubt, he and the club have to accept that most won’t be as forgiving next season and really don’t want the same excuses again.

This is for me the crux of where most of the anti McKellar sentiment seems to stem from.

1st Game vs Gloucester in the cup, we were underdogs given our absentees were carried over from the world cup period, but we completely lost our heads at a couple of points yet still made a fist at the end too late.

2nd game. This is the big one, win here and we'd have ended the weekend 2nd. We played lethargically. That does not look good post 6N rest. Not officially confirmed or used as an excuse is the "sickness in camp". I know I have gone on this forum about it a number of times.

Was a chunk of the team ill or not.

If they were not ill then it's a poor result.

If they were ill, it's a backs against the wall creditable almost win where we did well to get 2 points.

Facts as we know it.

Pollard confirmed ill by the club was out the game. Shillcock (probably expecting to come off the bench at FB starts at FH)

Kelly confirmed to the press by the club he played 80min through illness so was given the week off after.

Other circumstantial evidence for illness

We kicked to touch a lot more straight from kickoff, normally we keep ball in play and try to wear oppositions down, we wanted regular breathers instead unlike Tigers play any other game.

Week before Heyes threw up pitchside so may have been affected the week before passing something in camp.

We rested none of our 6N guys, so the least likely guys to be affected by a bug were straight into the action rather than rested.


Now I know the club have not used it as an excuse but I genuinely think that we had a bug in camp and therefore 2 points is a decent enough return. Unfortunately it was a real spanner in the playoff race... However those rating McKellar will understand and observe that one, we do not.

[Rugbygramps]

There are so many factors involved.

New Coach in a new Country
The mess around Dickens
Rugby World Cup
New Season structure, PRC games first
Large gap in the season during the 6 nations.
3 clubs less than previous seasons

These aren’t excuses these are facts/reasons not just for Tigers but why the premiership is so closely bunched.

[RagingBull]

All discussions tigers will always eventually end up about Loffreda

It is a fair comparison, no? I appreciate it was 16 years ago at this point, but a coach coming in, affected by World Cup year.

Purely based on league results -

1999/00 - Dean Richards - Finished 1st - Champions
2003/04 - Dean Richards (Sacked)/John Wells - Finished 5th
2007/08 - Marcelo Loffreda - Finished 4th - Runners up
2011/12 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 2nd - Runners up
2015/16 - Richard Cockerill - Finished 4th - Losing Semi-finalist.
2019/20 - Geordan Murphy - Finished 11th
2023-24 - Dan McKeller - Potential finish 1st - 9th*

Deano, Loffreda and Murphy left their positions either during or after World Cup affected seasons.

Another key point I suppose in McKellars favour is he's 1 year into a 3 year contract. Is he doing that badly to warrant us paying him out of it? I'm not sure he is.

Well for starters with Loffreda the fact English was his second language didn't help.
Cockerill was already in charge of the club for pre-season and the first 2 months of the season. You had the likes of Neil Back back stabbing him. Backy was already gunning for the Tigers head coach role before Lofferda was out the building fortunately the club gave it to Cockers and Backy sulked and went to Leeds.

Lofferda wasn't given a chance and the Tigers old boys made sure of it
and the league was massively different in terms of talent distribution.

[CrumblingTerrace]

It's peculiar when you realise our wins/losses are the same as everyone else above us, bar Saints. Our season feels fragile, Bath's feels strong.

The stats don't lie, but context is needed.

I don't feel confident that the way we've collected our 8:6 record could win us a Prem final, or even an away semifinal. There's very little evidence from this season to show how we could rip into the in-fork teams.

As for the likes of Bath, Quins and of course Sarries, they seem much more capable on turning it on and going all the way.

[manxleigh]

For my money, if we are going to be at all competitive in the top 4, we need a world class attack coach asap. Don’t know how many times I’ve watched and commented on our inability to break the gain line or get the ball wide and on the front foot. The forwards can’t do it all. Don’t think we have bad players, they just need a different script.